Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

March 30, 2010

Some MSU fans miss end of game

11 seconds of nothing after power supply fails

BY LINDSAY VANHULLE

TRAVERSE CITY -- Spartans' fan Mark Haworth tuned in to watch Michigan State University's men's basketball team play Tennessee in the NCAA Midwest Regional final.

Sunday's game was the kind sports fans love -- a nail-biter of a contest that seemed destined to be decided at the buzzer. The score was tied at 69 with roughly 11 seconds left.

Then the screen froze. Or went dark altogether.

"I figured the signal would come on, but (there was) a little bit of irritation at a moment like that," said Haworth, of Cedar, who watched the game with family members.

"I went straight to the computer once I realized it wasn't coming back."

He caught video of MSU forward Raymar Morgan's Final Four-clinching free throw, but not everyone did.

A power supply unit at TV 9&10, the local CBS affiliate based in Cadillac, failed as the game wound down, leaving viewers connected through Charter Communications scrambling to find a way to catch the last seconds.

Some turned to their computers and watched streaming video on sites such as NCAA.com. Others, who viewed at local restaurants with satellite feeds, had no interruptions.

Staff at 9&10 "immediately" began to search for the problem's source, said Lowell Shore, the station's chief engineer.

"It took a while to determine it was here, as opposed to somewhere else," Shore said. "Things will fail. It just took a bad, bad time to do it."

The problem affected viewers of both the Cadillac WWTV station and WWUP in Sault Ste. Marie, Charter corporate officials said.

It took about 40 minutes for the station to reappear.

Charter and 9&10 staff both said they received viewers' calls, but neither could quantify how many.

"We knew it went down," Shore said. "The phones were ringing. That's safe to say."

Gloria Marriott and her husband had the game on at home in Traverse City when the feed failed.

Her husband, who attended MSU, refreshed a Web site and called out status updates in the final seconds.

"It was very, very upsetting," Marriott said. "And then he was really excited."

That's precisely why neighboring bars Dillinger's Pub and Bootlegger's, in downtown Traverse City, installed separate television hookups, manager Tammy Arbuckle said.

Bootlegger's has satellite television, while Dillinger's customers watch by Charter connection, she said. When Charter's signal went down, patrons on the Dillinger's side streamed into Bootlegger's to finish the game.

"Generally speaking, they don't go down (together)," Arbuckle said. "I don't know what would happen."

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